Air Display updated to make your third-gen iPad an external Retina monitor for your Mac

Avatron’s popular iOS app Air Display—which allows users to turn their iDevices into wireless external monitors for their Macs/PCs—has been updated to support the new third-generation iPad and its Retina display. While the update takes advantage of the third-gen iPad’s 2048 x 1536 display, using that resolution would result in very small windows and an overall bad user experience.

So, to compromise, Air Display makes use of OS X Lion’s HiDPI mode (its enhancement pictured at right), which allows the OS to support higher-resolution monitors while keeping the size of UI elements including windows and buttons the same size that they would be on lower-resolution displays. Using HiDPI mode will allow the iPad to run as an external display at only 1024 x 768 in the interest of sizing, with each point being made up of 4 pixels.

This update to Air Display is not yet live within the App Store, although it should be released soon. If you’d like to purchase the app in advance, it’s $9.99 on the App Store and works with all three iDevices.